I Heart the Music: Your Online Source for Live Music Reviews and Interviews in Toronto!

Ten Second Epic is a band that hails from Edmonton, Alberta and have been creating a stir within the rock/punk scene for quite some time now. Together, Andrew Usenik (vocals), Dan Carriere (guitar), Craig Spellisey (guitar), Sandy Mackinnon (bass) and Patrick Birtles (drums) recently released their third album, Hometown. iheartthemusic decided to venture out to Kathedral during CMW to check out what all the hype was about. Here’s what they had to say:

iheartthemusic: So, Ten Second Epic?

Sandy: I actually had a weird dream where a naked Zeus was fixing me a grilled cheese sandwich and he said, “from this day forward you shall be known as the Ten Second Epic,” and I ate it in less than 10 seconds. Zeus was wearing kind of like a loin cloth; it was a very erotic dream.

Dan: Zeus had tie-dyed it, it was a like a psychedelic loin cloth.

Sandy: It was wonderful, and you know, I never forgot it, it was a really, really erotic dream.

iheartthemusic: Your style as a band is fairly eclectic. Do you feel that this is a reflection of your sound as well?

Dan: We don’t like to define our sound in relation to what we look like. It’s kind of like what you see is what you get. I could say one thing though; we don’t look like any kind of trend, before or after, we just kind of enjoy playing tunes and writing catchy songs.

Sandy: I mean I don’t look a thing like our singer. I think that’s something to embrace, we have a lot of fun with it. It’s not a costume it’s just our thing.

Dan: We aren’t that theatrical.

iheartthemusic: You recently released your third album, Hometown. Did you choose that title as a homage to Edmonton?

Dan: If you want to get into it, it’s kind of paying homage to where ever you are. The first track on the record is appropriately titled “Welcome To Wherever You Are” and a lot of times that becomes your home. We spent about nine or 10 months of last year in a van and even if we were in a place we didn’t like, at least we had the van there. So it’s just kind of whatever is comfortable for you. It’s a homage to having that.

Sandy: Having your rock.

iheartthemusic: So with all this touring, you must have shared the stage with some amazing bands?

Sandy: We did an American tour with a band called Cartel that was unbelievable. We were like the hick boys in big New York City, having a great time, getting wasted, riding the subway. In Canada, we did the Hedley tour and those guys are awesome dudes. We had a ball hanging out with them. It was a lot of fun.

Dan: A lot of these bands that people will naturally turn their nose up to, as I would when I was younger, can really surprise you. When we started touring with Hedley, they started covering rock songs and they were incredible musicians. That’s what people forget about. It sounds like simple pop music, but a lot of times these guys are top of their game for any song.

iheartthemusic: What has been your favourite place to play?

Sandy: I like playing just about anywhere in Canada. It’s up to the band to bring the party, when the party’s brought and everyone is getting wasted, slamming beers on their head, and kicking holes in the wall, you know it’s a success!

Dan: You know the worst is when you are at a show and there are people who are there who don’t know why they are at a show. So whenever you get the vibe that people like being there, then that’s the whole point of it all.

Sandy: Really, at the end of the day I still love getting on stage and I love in my heart knowing that we’ve got something to prove. Even if these people have seen us a million times, and they’ve probably seen us at our worst and seen us at our best, every night we’ve got something to prove.

iheartthemusic: You also have a video out for your single “Lifetimes”, which recieved heavy rotation on MuchMusic.

Dan: The idea of the song is kind of a cheesy point, but it is that you wait forever for that person to say I love you to you. So we decided to put a different spin on that concept and we thought what can’t say I love you? First we thought maybe we will have an animal, but that didn’t work, so we thought of having a baby and just went with that because they can’t talk. It was a blast hanging out with a baby all day.

Sandy: There are two babies, actually. The one baby was so pretty and the other one was, like, missing teeth and carrying a knife on its side and loved drinking and shit.

iheartthemusic: [laughs] That was the stunt baby right!? What’s been your favourite place in Toronto to play?

Sandy: I love The Opera House. I think The Opera House is, bar none, one of my favourite places.

Dan: I like playing Mod Club.

iheartthemusic: What did you love about them?

Sandy: What I liked about The Opera House was that it was just, like, in your face; you could interact with the crowd. It almost felt like someone could grab you. It’s just got that vibe to it.

iheartthemusic: Any crazy fan moments?

Dan: There is tons of weird stuff. One time I showed up at this show and this girl had gotten my face airbrushed on both the front and back of her cell phone, like on the casing.

Sandy: I don’t really find that fans do creepy stuff, I think it’s awesome. If I was meeting Iron Maiden I would probably be doing some weird shit too. I love it when kids are so into it.

iheartthemusic: What’s up next for you guys?

Sandy: We are going down to California to do Bamboozle where we will be playing with 50 Cent. Then we are going to announce some dates soon and rip shit across Canada for over a month and have a fucking ball.

iheartthemusic: Anything you want to add for your fans?

Sandy: We have a new video coming to MuchMusic right away for “Welcome to Wherever You Are,” which is the opening track off the record. It will be hitting MuchMusic pretty soon so request the living shit out of that!

Ten Second Epic has JUST announced their first headlining tour in support of their new record, Hometown. The “Welcome to Your Hometown” tour kicks off next month with a stop in Toronto on May 30th at The Mod Club. Check out their website for dates in your city!!

Photography provided by Matt Vardy

One of the perks of being in the music industry is being exposed to all kinds of music and ways of performing. A band that sticks out in our minds as one that has taken performing to a whole new level are the three guys from Peachcake. Peachcake is a band from Arizona made up of Stefan Pruett (vocals), John O’keefe (vocals/keytar) and Mike Mchale (guitar).  iheartthemusic went to check them out during CMW and were surprised to find that their show consisted of them rocking out in rabbit and bear costumes and using sheets and lamp shades as props. Sound interesting? Well it was! (Definitely something that could cure any kind of a hangover!)

iheartthemusic: Where did the name Peachcake come from?

Stefan: It originally came from the Planet Awesome many, many moons ago. It’s an ancient scroll, but it also was transposed onto the planet Earth into the TV show Saved By The Bell. They utilized the terminology as a sarcastic or sardonic tongue-in-cheek term of endearment. AC Slater had actually said the word to Jessie Spano, his sort of pseudo girlfriend at the time, when she had made some snide remark about his chauvinism. His response to her was, “not the way I do it peachcake,” and thus it became stolen from the scrolls of the Planet Awesome.

iheartthemusic: So what exactly is the Planet Awesome?

Stefan: The Planet Awesome is actually a state of consciousness or a state of being that is already among all of us and inside all of us. It’s kind of the same as a sanctuary-like state that we can go to at any given time. If we want to go there and we are in control of it and we can be aware of it, then it fills you to the brim with awesome energy. That’s essentially what it is in a nutshell and we’re just here to sort of propagate that on the planet Earth. We want to bring that to the people and show them that it is already here and it already exists. It’s not anything that you have to be afraid of or inhibited toward or about, it is what it is and it’s important for you to rebel in that and experience that in the highest degree or extent possible.

iheartthemusic: Do you use your music as a way to promote that?

Stefan: I think it’s a conglomerate of several factors. Overall we have kind of our own mini movement that is just an offshoot of a larger, grander movement that is already here and happening all over the world. That movement  is called the positivity movement or at least that’s what we call it. It’s about being positive and realizing that you can choose to be in a certain state of mind or in a certain kind of mood at any given time. We have this tagline that says, “how hard is it to choose to be in a good mood,” and it doesn’t mean that we are trying to negate experiencing the whole gamut of human emotions or of non-human emotions or creature emotions, because that’s important and is what shows us how to feel one way or another.

iheartthemusic: Has this always been your mantra as a band?

Stefan: I think it’s always good to be positive and have a good mindset towards things.

Mike: It’s probably become more and more a mantra for us as we age.

Stefan: I kind of came to that revelation within the last few years myself. I think it’s always been ingrained in my being but I may not have realized it or been aware of it. We all have gone through certain things that some would deem being very negative or dispossessing, but for me I took all of what could have been negative energy and turned it into something that I didn’t want to let go in vain. I really want to allow this to affect others in a positive way.

Mike: I think that is where we came together on this album and we wrote a lot about that because we wanted to get over negative situations and think more positively.

iheartthemusic: What gave you the idea to incorporate costumes into your performances?

Stefan: Again, I think it’s in the fibre of my being. My mom said that since I was in early grade school I was making masks and toying with the idea of dressing up. I had all kinds of costumes that I would wear around.

Mike: I used to wear the Ninja Turtle headbands.

Stefan: I think that might have a little bit to do with it because if you think about the way that you are cultivated and the way we’re kind of acculturated as people. We are surrounded by Ghostbusters and Ninja Turtles that are very baroque and costume oriented and then they have this message of saving the world. I think that might have been instilled in us but I just love the idea of transformation and transforming into something and being transformative in a performance.

John: I think it makes the most sense with our music. I would feel weirder if we were dressed normal. I think that we look at it like we are transforming our music into something different so as to transform our image. Not that we focus on it so much, but it makes more sense to do that with our music.

Stefan: Considering we are from a place that most people are not familiar with, or introduced to, there is a lot of judgment that inherently comes with the way we look, but we like to transform and give them a taste of it and say hey we can live uninhibited and we don’t have to fear and be inhibited in our ways. We are giving them a taste of that, trying to open their eyes to that. We want to permeate the atmosphere with that similar vibe and synergy. That is why there is so much emphasis on involving the crowd and why the audience ultimately becomes the show or at least a main component.

iheartthemusic: How would you define your sound?

Stefan: I don’t think it’s something that can be truly defined because we are always trying to do something different and this is one phase of what we are trying to do. Right now it’s just about bringing greatness and happiness to others.

iheartthemusic: You guys were actually the first band to get asked to play Burning Man, do you have any stories from that experience?

Stefan: I don’t know if that’s true, we might have been. It’s very dusty.

Mike: Our old drummer and I wanted to go on a slip ‘n slide that was going on, so we were riding our bikes and a dust storm just came through and we were driving our bikes through this dust and you couldn’t see ahead of you at all. One of our shows actually got cancelled because of dust storms.

John: During the day it was nice. One of the most interesting things that I saw was a silver surfer that was naked surfing across the desert on a surfboard.

Mike: After seeing so many naked people you are completely immune to it.

Stefan: It’s just that idea of living uninhibitedly.

iheartthemusic: Why did you want to do CMW?

Mike: Canada has really taken to us in various ways. I don’t know if we have a particularly large following or anything but we did NXNE two years ago and that was bad ass and it was weird because we become tight with all the Broken Social Scene people and they were really nice. It was just funny, because Canadians seem to enjoy what we are doing, at least those that are exposed. I love Toronto, we’ve been here before and it treated us great! There’s a veggie dog stand on every corner and that’s amazing. There are good people and good times and we want to bring the greatness.

iheartthemusic: You are bringing that to the UK soon too, right?

Mike: I think so. We are going to Norway for sure. The UK we are supposed to be doing The Great Escape but I don’t know what’s up with it yet, we are trying to figure out all the details. We go to Norway in July which is awesome.

iheartthemusic: Anything you want to add?

Mike: We have a record out and you can get it at most record stores or on iTunes.

John: Thank you for having such colourful money!

Mike: Canada has by far the greatest currency that I have ever seen. All the toonies and loonies are great.

Stefan: Fear is not an option and never be afraid of who you really are. Have fun with yourself!

photography provided by   Kristin M.

Melbourne-bred band Forgiven Rival were one of  few Australian bands that had the privilege of coming to Canada to play during CMW. These guys are not new to the music scene, they’ve already toured all over Australia and are now ready to conquer Canada with their new rock sound that covers everything from pop rock to hardcore. In 2006 they independently released their debut EP, The Symphony of Words, which got them heard by both music fans and labels alike. Now in their third year together, they have released their first full length album, shared the stage with some incredible acts, and are hoping to expand their fan base Canadian-style.

iheartthemusic: Welcome to Canada! Is this your first time here?

Simeon: It’s my first time overseas so I’m really excited to be out of Australia!

iheartthemusic: And into the cold!

Joel: It’s good though!

iheartthemusic: For those Canadians who have yet to hear about you, let’s go back to how you guys started.

Adrian: Simeon and Joel were playing in a punk band in high school and I always wanted to join but my parents would never let me, so I was kind of bummed out about that. Then when that band broke up we started jamming. We ended up snagging a bass player, who was a friend of a friend, and started doing some shows. Our bass player ended up leaving about two years ago to travel, so we picked up Pete and we’ve been traveling around and touring with the four of us ever since.

Joel: We did all go to high school together, so we’ve all known each other for 10 years.

iheartthemusic: Why the name Forgiven Rival?

Simeon: It wasn’t anything very original. We had a whole bunch of words that we liked the sound of and we just sort of went through them piece by piece. Forgiven Rival we all sort of agreed upon at the time and thought it was pretty sweet.

Joel: It is kind of a band name that you can make your own meaning out of. We don’t really have a meaning for it, we just thought it was cool at the time.

iheartthemusic: You guys have an independently released EP out and also recently released your debut album: This is a War. Tell us a little bit about the sound of this album.

Adrian: Probably a cross between Story of the Year and Underoath.

Joel: It’s also got influences from soft bands like Boys Like Girls and Cartel. They are more vocal and harmony influenced and we combine that along with the screaming and breakdowns and all that kind of stuff. It’s all chucked into one big mash of music.

iheartthemusic: You have also released a video for your single “Like The Effects of the Wind.” What’s the concept behind that video?

Adrian: We actually kind of threw around a few ideas, but we had to do it in a place that was cheap because we didn’t have much money. So Simeon’s uncle actually had a farm about 40 minutes from where we live with a bunch of land and that is what you see in the background. We did it with a film company called Room Three and they hiked all this gear up this insane hill that we could barely get up or down. It was really cool and turned out really well. We did it at about midnight until four in the morning and it was freezing.

Simeon: The concept behind the video is related to its title “Like The Effects of the Wind.” We thought it would be cool to have the wind and the leaves falling around and at the end it get a bit more intense. It gives it more meaning than just the lyrics themselves so that you can put a visual to it as well.

iheartthemusic: You have already done tons of touring in Australia including a stint with Canada’s own Silverstein!

Adrian: That was pretty early on. We got hooked up with a really cool booking agency from Australia called Destroy All  Lines and they were touring Silverstein at the same time so we got hooked up with them. They took us on a few shows which was really cool. We’ve been really lucky with some of the spots we’ve been able to do, like doing shows with Underoath, Story of the Year and Escape the Fate, stuff like that.

iheartthemusic: So who have been your favourites?

Simeon: My favourite band definitely has been Underoath. So much so that I got a tattoo of Underoath on my foot! Loved it!

iheartthemusic: Do they know about this tattoo?

Simeon: No they don’t, I got it a couple of week afterwards.

iheartthemusic: What was so cool about playing with them?

Simeon: I think because we all really dig their music and think it’s really good that it was great to be able to share the stage with them. They are also cool guys and because we were the only support on the show, it made us feel a bit special. It was a sold out venue so it was a great show to play and we got a great response from it.

Adrian: They were really cool dudes. They would actually chat with us for a bit, which was great because sometimes big bands won’t even be there until two minutes before they play. These guys actually took the time to introduce themselves and even watched us play.

iheartthemusic: Why did you choose to showcase during CMW?

Adrian: There’s a much bigger scene and market for our kind of music in Canada and the States. There are also a ton of label reps out at CMW, so our management has been working on getting a few of them along to the shows. Hopefully this showcasing will get us back over here for a more serious tour. We would love to do a straight month of touring or something like that so we can actually come back.

iheartthemusic: Is  that what you are hoping to get out of it then?

Joel: We can’t just want more exposure because we want to try and do a second album, and it would be great to have it all over the world instead of just in Australia. Hopefully by playing here a lot of people will see us and enable us to release a second album over here and get on a label or have someone help us and promote us in a different country, which would be sweet.

iheartthemusic: Canada is your first choice then?

Joel: I think a lot of the bands here are similar to what we do. I mean, if we can get anyone like Alexisonfire to tour with or even get people who listen to them listen to us, that would be awesome! That’s what we are hoping for!

iheartthemusic: What has been the biggest culture shock for you so far?

Peter: Definitely the cold weather was a bit of a culture shock because we just came from 40 degree weather for two weeks straight. We had bush fires and stuff everywhere. It does beat down on you so much, so it’s been good to get out and into the sub zero weather. I am kind of sick of it now though.

Simeon: The food is also totally different here. You go to McDonalds and there is maple syrup on your egg and bacon McMuffin and you don’t expect that. Everyone is so obsessed with coffee here as well! Tim Hortons is intense man, there are so many of them.

Joel: I’m excited about lots of different beers. In Australia there are not that many good beers.

iheartthemusic: You have Foster’s though!

Joel: It’s horrible stuff.

iheartthemusic: Apparently it’s number one in the UK!

Joel: Really? I feel sorry for them.

Peter: I have to give props to all the cab drivers here. They are rad. Back in Melbourne they suck, they won’t pick you up. You stand on the side of the street for a minute here and wave your hand and they pull over for you. Back in Melbourne you do that for an hour and they drive right by.

Simeon: We did walk past a place called The Jerk Spot and thought that was pretty funny.

iheartthemusic: How would you describe your live performance?

Peter: Amazing!

Adrian: Energetic and tight probably. All the bands we grew up listening to were super tight, both the Australian and international bands, and so if we want to compete with them we have to work really hard to keep our songs at album quality or better.

Joel: We also try and give people something to watch. So we move around, jump around and hopefully get the crowd involved as well, hence the word energetic. We don’t like to go see bands where they just stand there and play music.

Simeon: If there is nothing to watch then you might as well be at home listening to the CD. It’s the whole reason you go to a live show, to see a show.

iheartthemusic: Anything you want to add for your Canadian fans?

Peter: Canadians are the nicest people ever. They rock.

Simeon: They smoke more weed than we have ever come across! Thanks for being so nice, even people that we would never expect to know who we are and just see that we are tourist, they stop and ask us where we want to go and give us directions. A big thank you because you have been super nice.

Joel: Hopefully next time we come to Canada you can come watch us!

These guys put on a stellar show during CMW that had the whole house rocking out or handbanging along to their tunes. We wish them all the best and hope that we will see them soon back in Canada! Check them out on their MySpace!

photography provided by Matt Vardy

« Older Entries